Asian real estate classifieds company, IPGA, has released half yearly figures showing it lost A$1.32 million (US$1.87 million) at the same time its advertising revenue grew by more than half.

Listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, IPGA has interests in five countries across the Asia-Pacific and is a market leader in Malaysia and Singapore through its iProperty brand.

The company announced that while its classifieds revenue grew strongly, any increase was offset by the declining performance of its Malaysian magazine business and events business, and was exacerbated by a strong Australian dollar.

However, IPGA’s chief executive officer, Shaun Di Gregorio, said the past year had set IPGA up for the challenges ahead.

“We focused our operations on the three key markets of Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, we focused on our core online advertising product, and we began improving the quality of our management team,” he said.

“The result was that we exited the Taiwan market, achieved a 50% growth in online advertising revenues and cemented ourselves as a leading player in the region. I am looking forward to 2010 as a year of continued growth in these core markets.”

AIM Group caught up with Shaun Di Gregorio last month and you can read the full interview here.